
DATE: Saturday, November 15, 1997           TAG: 9711150363

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY LOUIS HANSEN, STAFF WRITER   

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   83 lines

UNEXPECTED VISITOR SAVES LIVES WOMAN RUSHES INTO APARTMENT COMPLEX TO WARN OF PEOPLE OF FIRE.

Lillian ``Nikki'' Swan hollered so loudly in the hallway of her apartment complex Friday morning, that a sleepy-headed man thought she was an evangelist.

But Swan wasn't preaching gospel.

``Fire!'' she yelled, as smoke began to fill the hallway. ``Get up!''

He awoke with a fervor.

Forty-six people, including the groggy man, were displaced when fire spread through their Belleville Meadows apartments in northern Suffolk.

No injuries were reported. Officials estimated $225,000 in damage to the building, one of several at the complex on the 5600 block of Plummer Blvd., just off Townpoint Road.

Officials said 16 of the 24 apartments involved in the fire will be reopened today, but the rest will stay closed for several days.

The Suffolk chapter of the American Red Cross arranged motel lodging for most of the 46 residents, said Faye Byrum, local director of the agency.

Firefighters received a call at 8:19 a.m. about a fire on the second floor of one of the buildings.

The Suffolk fire marshal's office determined that the fire was caused by a second-floor resident who accidently left a stove burner on. The heat ignited grease in a frying pan, and the fire spread to the kitchen cabinets and attic.

The fire consumed a second-floor apartment and a common attic above an eight-unit section of the building, said Capt. Jeff T. Messinger of the Suffolk Fire Department.

Fire walls that separate the building into three sections helped to limit the damage, Messinger said. Officials estimate that the building sustained $125,000 in structural damage and residents lost about $100,000 in furniture and contents.

The 128 units in the Belleville Meadows Apartments complex, mostly tidy with red brick and white siding, are a mixture of low- and moderate-income apartments.

Oneika Lawrence, 23, was asleep in her second-floor apartment when a neighbor awakened her. She ran outside in sweatpants and a light jacket.

``(Smoke) was coming out of the windows and out of the top,'' said Lawrence, shivering in the cold mid-morning rain, ``and then the whole roof caught on fire.''

Nikki Swan, 65, was walking home from the nearby Plummer senior center after visiting friends when she spotted smoke rising from the roof of the apartment building. She rushed to the building, knowing her niece lived there.

Her voice boomed from her just-over-5-foot frame as she roused tenants from the burning building.

``I started banging on doors,'' Swan said. ``I got people out.''

Firefighters had brought the blaze under control by 9:30 a.m. Fire departments from Suffolk and Chesapeake responded, as well as volunteer units from Driver and Bennetts Creek.

About three-quarters of the roof collapsed, gutters melted, and sections of the white siding were scorched.

Anabella Madison, Swan's niece, drove home from her job as a medical assistant to see what damage had been done. Firefighters allowed her to retrieve some valuables from her two-bedroom apartment, which she shares with her 11-year-old daughter, Melanie Myers.

Books and papers floated in her soupy living room. Her home reeked of smoke.

Madison said she was glad no one was hurt, but that wouldn't take much of the sting off when her daughter returned home from school. ``She's going to be so upset when she finds out.'' MEMO: The Suffolk Chapter of the American Red Cross is accepting cash

donations for families affected by the fire. For more information, call

539-6645, or send donations c/o American Red Cross, P.O. Box 129,

Suffolk, Va., 23439. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Lillian Swan alerted sleeping residents of the fire sweeping through

their Belleville Meadow Apartments on Friday morning in Suffolk.

JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot

Firefighters inspect the roof of the apartment complex. The fire

temporarily displaced 46 people from 24 apartments.

Map KEYWORDS: FIRE